Designing Products for Life Cycle Profitability

Designing Products for Life Cycle Profitability (DPLCP) is a comprehensive body of knowledge that goes far beyond just the idea of designing products so that production is more cost-effective. DPLCP is an inclusive framework that describes processes, methodologies and techniques for designing products so that they are easier, safer, and less expensive to manufacture, distribute, service and use.

In this course, your team will learn through brief lectures, case studies, videos, and exercises about numerous DPLCP techniques and methods. They will then explore firsthand how to apply these techniques to real products which teams of participants will disassemble, dissect, and evaluate. In two labs, your team will learn how selected products were engineered in the context of the five views of DPLCP.

The course shows how to enhance a product's life cycle costs with DPLCP processes, tools and methodologies. Your team will learn how to implement the DPLCP elements to reduce costs and enhance product effectiveness at your company. They will develop several hands-on presentations during this program using various templates and analytical methodologies.

Custom Program Benefits

Your team will be able to:

• Apply a framework to your product development processes that specifically addresses:
• Design for fabrication (DFF)
• Design for assembly (DFA)
• Design for environment and safety (DFE&S)
• Design for logistics (DFL)
• Design for serviceability (DFS)
• Define measurable manufacturing variables that your company will need to properly assess life cycle costs and profitability
• Build a relevant product life cycle cost and profitability model that simulates the impact of forward costs, specifically focusing on eight DPLCP economic variables
• Drive necessary organizational changes for global DPLCP implementation success
• Design and execute "design review workshops," that drive real-time product development transparency across all entities in the organization
• Build a compendium of design expectations and rules that encourage a life cycle profitability view of product development
• Promote cultural changes that will be necessary for your organization to adopt a "product design for profitability" culture

Topics

• How do I create a "framework" for comprehensive life cycle product development that works with my products, technologies and enterprise culture?
• What key fabrication considerations should be addressed during the product development process?
• What key assembly considerations should be addressed during the product development process?
• What key life cycle environmental and safety considerations should be addressed during the product development process?
• What key logistics considerations should be addressed during the product development process?
• What key life cycle serviceability considerations should be addressed during the product development process?
• How do I perform a forward-looking life cycle profitability analysis?
• How can we measure life cycle costs and profitability, and how will these values drive product portfolio decisions?
• How do I "break" silo-thinking and replace it with a more transparent product development process and culture?

Program Detail

Introduction to DPLCP Framework

• DPLCP goals and strategies
• How DPLCP contributes to enterprise valuation
• Product life cycle cost implications of design
• Framework for DPLCP process
• Product development process in a DPLCP environment
• Importance of designing for manufacturability
• Manufacturing system inputs that are "designed in" by engineering
• A new definition of product cost
• Results of poor product development

Overview and Drill-Down on Five DPLCP Critical Elements

• Design for fabrication (DFF)
• Design for assembly (DFA)
• Design for environment and safety (DFE&S)
• Design for logistics (DFL)
• Design for serviceability (DFS)

Core Technical Principles of DPLCP

• DPLCP product development guidelines
• A new product development paradigm is needed
• Seven manufacturing variables that must be addressed in the design and engineering phases of product development
• Guidelines:
• Use off-the-shelf components
• Reduce total part-count
• Apply modular design
• Follow specific engineering guidelines
• Avoid right and left parts
• Design parts with symmetry
• If parts symmetry is not possible, design with substantial asymmetry
• Design parts to be multi-functional
• Design parts for multiple uses
• Avoid separate fasteners
• Maximize compliance
• Minimize physical assembly directions
• Design for fixturing
• Minimize tooling complexity by concurrently designing tools
• Specify optional tolerances for robust design
• Understand tolerance step functions and set tolerances wisely
• Apply Suh's Theory of Design
• Specify quality components from quality suppliers
• Select quality suppliers that are predictable
• Minimize setups
• Minimize material handling
• Minimize cutting tools

DPLCP Exploration Lab #1

• Working in teams, participants will disassemble and characterize real products in terms of:
• External packaging
• Internal packaging
• Product and accessories
• Level-1 assemblies
• Level-2 and below subassemblies
• Participants will identify all components (including labeling) and describe considerations that would likely be considered in traditional product design and engineering phases.
• Each team will document all findings, including photographs, BoM's and other important product data derived from the detailed tear-down activity.
• Each team will make presentations using provided templates.

DPLCP Economic Analysis Methods

• Identification of product cost elements
• Different ways to view product profitability
• What’s happening to direct labor costs?
• Direct material costs versus performance tradeoffs
• Material acquisition burden costs
• The difference between product burden and overhead costs and why this is important to the engineer
• Eight key DPLCP implementation and redesign costs
• Typical product cost analysis methodology

DPLCP Exploration Lab #2

• Participants will continue their physical product tear-down and define new approaches to design that will improve the product through:
• Design for fabrication (DFF) principles
• Design for assembly (DFA) principles
• Design for environment and safety (DFE&S) principles
• Design for logistics (DFL) principles
• Design for serviceability (DFS) principles
• This exploration lab will result in a complete product engineering package that defines all DCLCP issues for the selected products. It will define specific design improvements that support DCLCP principles along with an estimate of value derived from the recommended improvements.
• Each team will make presentations using provided templates.

Implementation of DPLCP

• How to build a robust DPLCP culture
• The new DPLCP product development organization paradigm
• Critical DPLCP implementation issues
• How customer requirements drive all design issues
• Establishing preferred material sets
• Establishing preferred parts lists
• Integrating product and manufacturing safety requirements into the product design and engineering phases
• Building a manufacturing plan during the product engineering phase
• Developing a clear view of product reliability requirements
• Building a product sustainment plan
• Enabling tools for integrated global product development
• The design review seminar… a staple in the DPLCP environment
• Key cultural requirements defined from the lens of the seven deadly sins of manufacturing
• What should you expect from your engineering function in a DPLCP environment

Who Should Attend

This program will provide substantial value to anyone who can benefit from product development that maximizes profitability over a product’s entire life cycle. Specifically, this program will benefit engineers and engineering leaders, supply chain professionals, customer service leaders, industrial engineers and operations leaders.

This program blends theory with hands-on exercises. Participants will execute a design for manufacturability process in reverse—tearing down and reassembling real products in workshop labs.

Instructor

Alan Dunn